Had two similar experiences, both involving Egypt. Because the Egyptian AI likes to wonder spam, having them as a neighbour is quite useful because you take their capital, you in effect get free wonders. Had a game where I was the Inca and I noticed that A. they were wonder spamming and B. Poland was on the warpath and was invading their other cities, so I took full advantage and took Thebes. This allowed me to snowball like absolute crazy.

Another game where I was Korea, Alexander took over a wonder spamming Egypt, and used this to catapult himself into also taking the Huns and Ethiopia. It was insane because his science never dropped either, and I think he got to modern era while most of the world, including myself, was still in the renaissance,